Friday, August 31, 2007

This is St. Teres. She is very lively and full of mischief, also very helpful, loves to sweep, water the garden, and come up to our house on one errand or another, but mostly to see her friends, of whom Laurie is chief. Laurie is "zamni'm" (my friend) and I'm "mama zamni'm" (the mother of my friend). St. Annie was the home's first resident. She had a rough time recently when she had problems with her meds and was very confused and disoriented. She's a sweetie, too, although quieter than St. Teres. Ernelia is very patient and sweet. She is blind, so sits a lot, but St. Teres loves to help her. They go for walks sometimes, and St. Teres, who is a terrible tease, will sometimes let go of Ernelia's arm, and say, "I'm getting tired of leading you; why don't you walk by yourself!" Then she giggles and giggles, and Ernelia laughs, too, and they link arms again and march on!

Linda B., who doesn't like to have her picture taken, does a great job of supervising the widow's home. The ladies love her, and she likes to spoil them a bit.

The blocks for our house are all made now, 2100 of them, made one at a time by hand. Rich and the block makers are celebrating with some cookies and pop. The last day's work. It rained today (that's Linda Blankenship headed down past the widow's home to her house after lunch)............................... so Rich, who has dengue fever, and has been working anyway, took a nap after lunch............. and so did Keith----he has malaria, and is very glad this is his last day on chloroquine. (We don't really make him sleep on a bare mattress; his sheets were washed today.)

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Family time at the end of the day. Too bad you can't smell these; they're pretty, but smell even better. We lived by the ocean down in Mole, and miss it, so on our way home from PAP, I had to take some pictures of that beautiful Caribbean blue. Just getting home from a supply run to Port au Prince, with a full load on our pickup. You notice Rich put the tire changing tools and jack right beside the door. We were glad not to need them this trip.

We've been having some difficulties with our internet service; have only been able to do emails occasionally, so it's nice to find things working a bit better today. We think it's probably weather-related--hurricanes and such--but we shall see....

Friday, August 10, 2007

This huge root refused to be budged. Finally, using two jacks and a winch, (and after a lot of animated discussion, which always seems to accompany any project here), they were able to get it out of the hole.

The guys installed our water tanks on top of the cistern to replace the small one that had been up there. They act like a mini water tower to provide a bit of water pressure for the houses. Working to clear the spot for our house.